We made our first trip to Al Ain this weekend to see the airshow. I can say that it will not be our last trip to this beautiful city!!
The show is a very big deal to the Emirates and while we did enjoy the airshow, we also enjoyed the many booths and cultural exhibits. Falconry is an integral part of Emirati heritage and it was great to see a Falconer showing off his birds. There are no cages. The Falcons sit on a perch with a hood over their eyes but you can clearly see the animal is very alert to all that is happening around them. Children were doing traditional dances which were quite beautiful.
In keeping with the love of driving offroad in the desert, Mercedes drove a couple of vehicles over a rugged obstacle course set up to twist the vehicles dramatically. Additionally there was a Formula One racing car on display to highlight Yas Island, which is being built specifically to be the new home of Formula One racing in the UAE.
But even more than the air show was the scenery of Al Ain. Here we found HUGE red/orange sand dunes, 4 stories tall and wind-swept like you only see in pictures. I could even see the sand whisping off the cusp like spray off a wave! It was beautiful. The sand dunes are larger than mansions, so my camera just could not do them justice. We saw camels that had walked up the edge and left their prints in the sand, the ONLY prints for miles around.
It was a truly beautiful place that we will explore more during our stay in the UAE.
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